My paladin reached level 40 today. As I had read that epic mounts are available at level 40 since patch 3.2, I looked around for the quest that would give my paladin his epic charger. Turns out Blizzard has been lazy: You can *buy* epic riding skill at level 40 as paladin. But if you want to do the quest, you need to do the old quest line, which is level 60. I love epic quest lines, but I'm not riding slowly for 20 more levels, just because there is no level-appropriate quest line for this.

Thus, being human, I followed the instructions in the letter the riding skill trainer Randal Hunter helpfully sent me, and traveled to the Eastvale Logging Camp in Elwynn Forest. There I bought the Journeyman Riding skill for 42 gold 50 silver. Then I went to the paladin trainer, and bought the Charger spell for 1 gold 80 silver. Alternatively I could have bought an epic horse for 8 gold 50 silver, but that doesn't make much sense for a human paladin: The charger and the epic horse have very similar models, with the charger looking better and costing less. For paladins of other races there is a choice to be made between a racial mount and the charger.

yeh i bought a 1k gold one back in the day too. use to farm devilsaurs in un'goro to make the devilsaur items for rogues. took weeks!

i think it's good that those gold sinks have been nerfed. gold for vanity crap is ok (mammoths). gold for necessary items like faster mounts gets a bit out of hand. makes alting more appealing which keeps people coming back over and over. good business decision!

You do get a feat of strength if you do the "proper" quest line later on :) My warlock got his mount before all this "early riding" and "trainable" thing, and consequently got the feat of strength as well :P

Once I have a mount in a game I rarely upgrade it at the first opportunity. In Vanguard I rode my level 10 mount until I was in my 30s and at 50 I still only had a camel that you can ride at about 20ish.

In WoW I haven't bothered to get a flying mount yet, even though my hunter was in the mid-60s when I stopped playing (blame the FE trial and now Dragon Age, but looks like I am done with WoW until the cataclysm).

A change from level 60 to level 40, or 1000 gold to 50 gold, doesn't particularly bother me. In fact I've been enjoying it very much on a couple of alts.

A change from an epic quest line to 50 gold is worrisome. I did the druid Flight Form quest just before it became trainable -- KNOWING that it was about to become trainable, and not wanting a challenging quest and major class milestone to become just another purchased skill. At least these true quests are still in-game for those who seek them out, but they feel a bit hollow now.

Moving fast mounts from 60 to 40 is a one number change. Changing the price, again simple to alter, simple to test.

Altering a level 60 epic quest line to play at level 40? NOT easy. I mean you could just hand it out at level 40 but leave it level 60-hard. That won't be fun for anyone though. Big change, lots of testing.

Worse yet, if you decide to move it from 40 to 25 you have all that work again.

On a bit of a tangent: do you all think that easier questing is the only reason we get mounts at lower levels?

I have a feeling (empirically untested, I admit) that the Northrend zones are significantly smaller than the Outland ones, and also smaller than most "Old Azeroth" zones. One of the reasons for that may be that the Northrend zones actually are smaller (although packed with way more action), but I think it's more likely that they simply feel that way because we're traversing Barrens by foot rather than epically flying across it.

Could it be that our Blizzard masters want to avoid a feeling of disappointment with the size of the higher-level zones by intentionally suppressing the feeling of size of the low-level ones?

You just wasted 40+ gold there Tobold. You could've just learn the Charger Spell, and you automatically get the Epic Riding Skill. :)

I think you are wrong. I tried that, *first* went to the paladin trainer to learn my level 40 spells, and couldn't learn the Charger spell. Only *after* I paid for the journeyman riding skill was the Charger spell available at the trainer. Maybe your information is outdated and this changed with patch 3.2?

"Could it be that our Blizzard masters want to avoid a feeling of disappointment with the size of the higher-level zones by intentionally suppressing the feeling of size of the low-level ones?"

I would guess people are unhappy with the size of current zones and want "smaller" zones like in Northrend. As you say "smaller" as measured by travel time.

It isn't that I think "Blizzard can do no wrong" (after all any change I like fixes a past wrong, and any change I dislike creates a present wrong...). I just think people like being able to ride. They like fast travel. I havn't heard anyone complain that northrend is too small, but I have heard folks complain about running being slow. About non-epic mounts being slow. About having to run being slower then flight.

So it is pretty clear folks want to move faster, and far less clear that folks need to be "trained" to think northrend is "big enough".

(that isn't to say nobody thinks northrend is too small, but it definitely isn't a common complaint)

I did the Warlock mount quest in vanilla WoW. I believe that the most work I ever put into WoW was during that time. Farming Black Dragonscales, dropping skinning and leveling Herbalism to get Ghost Mushrooms, leveling my warrior so he could make the Shadow Power elixirs, finding a group to do Scholo in a 5-man instead of 10-man group, going into Dire Maul and summoning the boss.

It was a very statisfying moment when I finally took ownership of that horse. To this day it is the only ground mount my Warlock rides.

Later I would do the Paladin Charger quest, but it was much less satisfying. Mainly because I was level 70 and just soloing everything.

Even later than that I went through the Druid flightform quest. It was done at-level, and thus proved challenging. But at the same time it didn't feel as "epic".

I have the 100 mount Achievement on my Paladin now. I've spent GOBS of gold on others (mount #100 was the Chopper). I've leveled Engineering on two seperate characters as much for the mounts as anything else. I've "Achieved" two mounts through in game actions (Violet and Red Protodrakes). I continue to farm for more mounts even still (Baron, ZG, Kara, and Anzu still refuse to play nice).

NONE of them, though, have felt as good as getting the Dreadsteed so long ago.

I managed to get my Paladin Charger the night before BC released in stores. Some of my guild was actually on the way out the door to get the midnight release directly after I got it.

Sure, it was easier then, due to the BC talents, but it still felt important to do it through that epic quest line, and do it before the level cap increased and old WoW made way to BC WoW. I even went so far as to ask very specific guild members and friends, because I wanted to share that personal milestone rather than do the "all Paladin" run some of the guys were doing, like some sort of mass baptism. I went into Scholomance proudly with my closest game friends, and rode through the dark portal on my beautiful shining mount the next day.

Vonbiram is retired now, and WoW collects dust in my memory, but that will be one of those personal character milestones that no achievement text could ever quite convey.

I also ground out "Knight Champion" title in PvP, with a full time work schedule, but that was not nearly so friendly a memory. It did, however, teach me the true meaning of the word "grind."

I welcome the cheaper mounts at earlier levels with open arms. I remember having to walk until level 40 and it was brutal. I also remember not getting my epic mount until about level 63 because I couldn't afford it yet. What they need to do next is reduce the epic flying to around 1k g and the cold weather flying to 50-100g. Duel spec should only be 50-100g while we are at it. I have two level capped toons with epic flying and two more toons coming of age, there's no way I can afford 5k g on all my toons and now with epic flying not quite twice as fast it just doesn't seem worth it anymore.

And on the subject of horse vs. paladin mount, I've heard rumors that they will add racial paladin mounts. I hope that's true, my male Draenei looks awfully silly on a horse, not to mention the illogic involved in how a horse got to Draenor in the first place...